Top Ten Consequences If AGW Activists Were In Charge Of The FIFA World Cup…

What would happen if the management of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa were handed over to our beloved climate-change activists? Just imagine:

Civil unrest spreads during Opening Ceremony as South Africa, the Host Nation, is immediately disqualified since it is going to build a giant coal-fired power plant

Opening-day (morning) sees the publication, by renowned experts, of match goal models with prediction of between 1 and 6 goals per match

Report is leaked to “The Independent” urging nets to be made smaller, otherwise 100 goals will be scored per match in the 2098 Cup

Opening-day (afternoon) sees the self-congratulation by same renowned experts and their admirers at the remarkable success rate of match goal models’ predictions

Started with the aim of giving Tuvalu an equal chance in winning the Cup, global soccer negotiations quickly get stuck on discussions about the shape of the ball

Middle point of the competition sees the self-congratulation by aforementioned renowned experts and admirers at the remarkable success rate of match goal models even in predicting that one team will win the Cup, eventually

On the eve of the biggest match in their career, the England team is told in no uncertain terms by both Government and Parliament to unilaterally cut the “emissions” of footballs into opponents’ goal nets by 85% by the same evening. Heskey replaces Rooney while worries about the consequences of scoring almost no longer are summarily dismissed.

During whirlwind world tour in-between the matches, (it’s them again!) the usual renowned experts fly to Bali to develop a consensus: Brazil will “very likely” (=90%) reach the quarterfinals

Civil unrest spreads during World Cup Final as spectators are kept away from the “Soccer City” stadium. This is due to football trend analyses showing the specific event as “unimportant” (“weather”, not “climate”)

OK. You’re not a denialist, you just denigrate people who embrace AGW. Of course, if you want to characterize “AGW activist” sufficiently narrowly, then you’d have a good defense. But you never bothered to explain what you mean by “AGW activist”. If you can be so loose with your characterizations, why can’t I?

E – I can make fun of people obsessed with health&safety regulations without being accused of being a danger to my colleagues. Why can’t I make fun of AGW activists without being called a “denialist”?

ps what is an activist? An activist is a _believer_. That’s the complete opposite of my POV. Perhaps I should bother with making fun of Monckton and the likes, for balance, but I’ll save that for the time when the Dear Lord will run the risk of ruining everybody’s life in one way or another 😎

“An activist is a _believer_. That’s the complete opposite of my POV.”

But you accept without question — believe — all sorts of nonsense that just happens to deny AGW. The silliness about Venus, the silly notion that scientists as a community accepted global cooling as a theory in the 1970s — and these are just in the last two weeks! A true skeptic is catholic in their skepticism, questioning every notion. You are much more critical of the “pro” side than the “anti” side. That’s not skepticism, that’s bias.

E – you have an issue in telling “open to speculation” from “believing”. Please check both in the nearest vocabulary.

Venus: there are many fascinating questions about that planet. Obviously there’s more to it than a “runaway greenhouse effect” and we should be investigating (and speculating!) about that freely…including about the effect of such a massive atmosphere on the surface temperature…

Global cooling: the world was cooling, they thought it was cooling, and between 1972 and 1975 there was a consensus about it. That’s why people remember being told in the early-to-mid 1970’s (by Newsweek and the likes) about global cooling. The alternative explanations (such as “Newsweek was exaggerating, and The New York Times too, and every popular science magazine at the time as well”) is rather unlikely, given the importance of Mitchell’s 1972 paper, and the CIA report from 1974. More: the very words used by Damon and Kunen, and by Broecker make sense only if they were trying to undermine an existing consensus (and yes, they were successful).

ps of course I am more critical of the “believer” side…that’s the people filling up the airwaves, cajoling politicians into silly pronouncements, causing massive payments to major energy corporations (the European ETS), openly speaking about curtailing liberties and ruining the economies, etc etc. . As a matter of fact, I am very unconvinced about Dark Energy and Dark Matter too, but as long as there’s no political implications of either I won’t be devoting a blog to those 😎

“you have an issue in telling “open to speculation” from “believing”.”

OK, so you don’t actually *believe* in any of this nonsense you’re writing, you are merely open to the possibility that it might be true. Perhaps you should indicate as such by using more speculative terminology in your writing. You make a great many flat declarations that should more properly be phrased as “uninformed speculations”.

For example, the temperature of Venus. You write:

“Obviously there’s more to it than a “runaway greenhouse effect”

Obviously? It may be obvious to somebody who doesn’t understand the physics, but it certainly isn’t obvious to me, although I don’t think we need to add the qualifier “runaway”. The normal everyday greenhouse effect is more than adequate to explain the high surface temperatures on Venus. I’ve already explained that science, yet here you are repeating uninformed “speculations”.

“the effect of such a massive atmosphere on the surface temperature”

The ideal gas law states pV = nRT. Throw in gravity and you get a clear explanation of why a massive atmosphere has *no* effect on temperature merely by virtue of its mass. None, zero, nada. This is basic physics, but you prefer to speculate about ideas that violate freshman physics. While you’re at it, why aren’t you questioning relativity and quantum mechanics? They’re much more exotic than the ideal gas law.

” the world was cooling, they thought it was cooling, and between 1972 and 1975 there was a consensus about it.”

No, that is not correct. There was a consensus that the world HAD cooled in the previous three decades. The difference here was that between “WAS cooling” and “HAD cooled”. There was no consensus that the world would continue to cool in the future. Indeed, the general thrust of thought was that the earth would probably warm due to CO2 emissions, but that there was no evidence to support the speculation. The NAS released a report in 1975, IIRC, stating that there was insufficient evidence to make any reliable assertions regarding future temperatures. Your CIA report mentioned that the NAS was working on that report.

“the people filling up the airwaves, cajoling politicians into silly pronouncements, causing massive payments to major energy corporations (the European ETS), openly speaking about curtailing liberties and ruining the economies, etc etc.”

OK, I can understand a contrarian position for the sole reason of being contrarian. Yes, it’s always healthy to have somebody asking probing questions. But your questions aren’t probing, they’re just dumb! You’re not hitting AGW in its weak spots, you’re merely repeating silly talking points that have long since been discredited. If you want to provide the public service of healthy criticism, then you should:

You know what, I am still unsure if you are able to contemplate the possibility that somebody might be looking at the same thing as you are looking at and yet this somebody might, just might have a different, yet equally valid interpretation, according to logic and/or science.

Luckily that’s not how science evolves, eventually, otherwise we would still be discussing phlogiston, circular orbits, the purely ondulatory nature of light and the impossibility of plate tectonics, together with the absence of multicellular pre-cambrian life… you know, all those consensuses we have freed ourselves from…

“the possibility that somebody might be looking at the same thing as you are looking at and yet this somebody might, just might have a different, yet equally valid interpretation, according to logic and/or science.”

That’s the problem: you’re using neither logic nor science. I explain the science to you and you simply ignore the science. I offer the ideal gas law and you simply disagree. OK, that’s fine with me, but you’re not using science when you choose to ignore one of the basic, thoroughly demonstrated laws of science. And it certainly isn’t logical to claim a scientific attitude when in fact you repeatedly reject basic scientific knowledge.

Indeed, I have noticed a paucity of rigorous logical thinking in your posts. You rely heavily on satire, insinuation, semantic quibbling, denigration of scientists and institutions with which you disagree, and completely unsubstantiated leaps of faith. I had hoped that cautious, careful explanation of the scientific issues would make some dents in your firmly-held beliefs, but it is apparent that I have failed to accomplish anything whatsoever. I therefore conclude that my participation here is a waste of time. I wish you well, and I bid you good day.

11. Nigeria win the World Cup in 2010, but the victory is completely ignored.

A FIFA spokesman explains: ‘Our analysis of the global averages and the long-term 80-year trend clearly reveals that Brazil have won the World Cup since 1958, and our models predict that they will continue to do so.

Should any other team appear to “win” on any one particular occasion, their apparent “victory” can be safely dismissed as sporting “weather”.’